Goodbye, Sunshine
by ShadowedSoulSpirit
Summary: The outcome of U.A.'s Sports Festival is different this time, and the results leave 1-A broken and fractured. How can they move on when one of their own is dead? And how will they attend class with the one who murdered their classmate? Warnings Inside.


**Goodbye, Sunshine**

* * *

 **A Boku no Hero Academia oneshot (?)**

 **Summary: The outcome of U.A.'s Sports Festival is different this time, and the results leave 1-A broken and fractured. How can they move on when one of their own is dead? And how will they attend class with the one who murdered their classmate?**

 **Warning: Rated T for cursing, angst and character death. I don't have a high opinion of Endeavor so don't expect one in here.**

* * *

"Huh?"

Katsuki Bakugo's arms throbbed and ached as he stared at his enemy, a ragdoll against the sheets of ice. No—he was not his enemy. He didn't fight Bakugo like he meant it. This win was nothing but trash, something he would inevitably chalk up to as defeat.

He looked at his hands for a moment. He knew their power. He knew their destruction.

"You put out your flames…"

He stepped forward and felt the recoil from his arms, but the pain was nothing compared to the humiliation of not being indisputably number one.

"Didn't I tell you that there was no point, dammit!"

He sprinted forward, snatching Shoto Todoroki by his collar. He felt cold and limp as he shook him. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fair.

"To get first place like this!" He wanted the stupid Half and Half to hear him, to respond with flames and venom, but he never stirred. He didn't even flinch. "To win like this… like—"

Midnight was already in the process of subduing him, and when he succumbed to her quirk and drifted like a brick to the ground, she slowly approached Todoroki as Present Mic's voice thrilled all around them with replays. The child had landed awkwardly back on the ice, his head tilted forward, and one arm pinned under his body. The air was electrified with frost, and she expected to see his breath blooming like smoke from his mouth to compensate for the drop-in temperature.

Only, it didn't.

Neither his lips or his nose twitched, and she had to maintain composure as she lowered two fingers to his neck and counted.

One, two, three, four, five.

Present Mic's voice began to drift as he realized what was happening, the thrum of excitement overwhelmed with a growing worry as Midnight crouched down next to the student and checked his pulse.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Bakugo restlessly fought off his slumber, but he couldn't emerge from it, grappling handfuls of sand and making no head in emerging from the trenches.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

Izuku Midoriya rose to his feet, searching desperately for signs from the small figure on the pyramid of ice, of all his fears and doubts. He had used his fire for a second. What made him stop?

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.

Endeavor grunted, turning his back from the arena. He walked down one of the exit ramps, full of contempt and disappointment for the thing biologically called his son.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five.

The stadium watched, waited, as Bakugo's face flashed on the screen, the possible winner far from their minds to celebrate.

Midoriya sunk into his seat and whispered softly. "No…"

Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine.

Thirty.

Midnight stood up and called for the emergency team, who clamored with difficulty over the ice to get to them. Midoriya was, unexplainably, in tears, curled around his injured arm like he could squeeze his heart back in his chest. Each light bulb turned on down the row, each student of 1-A realizing the gravity of the situation as they look at Katsuki Bakugo, his face slackened, and his mind settled.

They carried Todoroki away on a gurney, but 1-A knew, understood everything. Yaoyorozu tightened her clenched fists against her knees. Tsu drooped and her sad "ribbit" echoed all their unvoiced thoughts.

Not everyone could comprehend and understand not to be a bastard. So soon, Monoma was crawling over the wall with a sadistic grin on his face, like he had just stolen the keys to the castle and was mocking the king.

"So, looks like someone who was let in with recommendations even isn't that great. I wonder what that says about the rest of your class."

"Shut up man…" Kirishima warned, one arm wrapped around Sero and Kaminari.

"What~ Did I strike a nerve?"

"Stop being an asshole!" Ashido shouted, and Mineta nodded in agreement and quivered behind her.

Midoriya stood, feeling all the power of All Might as his fingertips but helpless to it. Had he beaten Todoroki, would it all be different? His head bobbled forward, his hands flexing. His bangs shielded his eyes.

"You know, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen as they say," Monoma prattled on as Midoriya slowly approached him.

They all recognized (or at least his classmates did) the dark web that tangled around his aura, and it scared them that such anger would be compounded into a soul like Izuku Midoriya.

They did not try to stop him.

"I don't think an ice quirk is that great anyway—"

Monoma didn't see the wind up until the fist was in his face, only a quarter of All Might's gift but enough to send him flying across the section and into the parallel wall. His fist stung, but nothing more, as his hand hung limply at his side, and he cried out, more or less, for the entire stadium to hear.

"He's dead, you jerk! Don't talk about him like that!"

Hesitantly, his classmates reached out to touch him, and when he crumbled easily, they pulled him back and comforted him as he wailed. Endeavor paused halfway down the exit. He had not heard it, he was sure, but there was an extra spring in his step as he made a B line for the infirmary.

And during this, Bakugo slept, his thoughts still on a graceless defeat and not the enemy he had just slain.

* * *

The stadium was evacuated soon after, all the citizens instructed to go home by the pro heroes and wait for further information. They had been trying to protect the students from an outside force. Little did they know the villain would come from within.

Even the other classes, like 1-B, were dismissed, and Kendo left dragging her unconscious friend out of the stadium. Tetsutetsu, tall enough to see over the wall, gave Kirishima a nod. It was returned, albeit weakly; even his rock-hard façade was chipping at his friends' tears.

Aizawa appeared in 1-A's section soon after, his eyes shifting to count the number of students still present.

Aside from Bakugo and Todoroki, there was only one other student missing.

Iida.

"Everyone," he said calmly, but he felt cold, frozen like Todoroki's ice that they were attempting to clear from the arena. And then he paused and closed his mouth. Were words really good enough now? "Follow me."

It took a lot of effort to get the herd moving—those who managed to evade their tears were having to guide those who lost themselves to it, especially Midoriya, as they numbly followed behind their sensei.

He took them to another part of the stadium, a place none of them went to in the winding hallways, and it was all foreign and unfamiliar, like the coffin walls of the USJ when the villains arrived. But this was no simple villain. This was their classmate.

Izuku Midoriya knew, had been a victim of his destructive behavior most of his life; but he never considered _Kacchan_ would be capable of murder.

Shoto Todoroki was laying on a table with a white sheet over most of his body, but it wasn't long enough to cover his face. It wasn't real, as class 1-A crammed into the tiny room around the table. But when they saw Recovery Girl bent in the corner, her eyes closed, it suddenly became real, all too real, and those who kept their tears at bay finally surrendered to them.

"Shoto!" Midoriya cried and sunk to the floor. Their sensei turned away as others did the same. Todoroki left behind lots of tears, tears he never froze with his isolation, tears that melted from his character and not the fire he despised in himself.

And they wept, some bitterly, some out of anguish, as they mourned the death of a classmate, a friend, and a future hero.

Aizawa stared at the wall and ignored the tears that slid beneath the bandages.

* * *

It was ten minutes before they heard pounding outside, someone's heavy footsteps echoing down the empty hall. Kirishima braced himself for Bakugo, but the door erupted and the person behind it was too big to be the hothead.

It was Endeavor, and his eyes racked the unfamiliar faces of the class first, and then the corpse. He unceremonially pushed his way past the children and stared hard at Todoroki's face, at the pale pallor and the scar on his beloved right side.

"What is the meaning of this!" He demanded, projecting his voice to Recovery Girl in the corner. "Why are you doing nothing?"

Aizawa sewed up the broken pieces, pivoting around and staring at the hero as if he didn't lose a student he would have died protecting.

"He's dead, Endeavor," he said it calmly, brashly, and didn't shy away when his fire sputtered. "The impact was too much, and it killed him. His heart gave out."

"He was not born weak like that." Endeavor grabbed both of his shoulders and forced the body to sit up, but it was all dead weight, and Todoroki's head sagged backward. "He's not dead."

"He is." Aizawa took a step forward, "So stop playing around with him. He's not your replacement anymore."

" _What did you just say?"_ The pro hero seethed and glared hard, his flames burning and singing the air.

"Please…" But his anger dissolved with the whimper as he turned towards Midoriya, _that person's_ protégé, on the ground in Uraraka's arms. "Please… let Shoto rest…"

Sometimes, death has no comprehension, no response in those who it would hit the hardest. He released the corpse, the body that no longer was his son but of a weak man who died in a sparring match—no. It _was_ the body of his son, and he was dead, denied any hope of a future to surpass him in. And when he made a full circle to that, he left, walking out as calmly as he could, so Endeavor would still hold the appearance of Endeavor, even if his heart was crying.

When Todoroki hit the table with a bang, they all felt like they had been shot, this world they had been encapsulated in exploding into bits like a target after a shotgun shell. Nothing would ever be the same. Not after this.

* * *

It was thirty seconds past the bell when Katsuki Bakugo appeared in the classroom, the next day after the Sports Festival, yawning and scratching the back of his head like nothing happened. The eyes of the entire class were on him, and he grunted.

"What?"

No one said anything, and Bakugo assumed it was because of his humiliating victory against Todoroki. He crashed into his seat in front of Midoriya. It looked like Half and Half didn't even want to face him today.

Class didn't proceed like normal. Aizawa let them speak quietly amongst themselves, not like there was much to talk about with Bakugo in the room, and he never gave a lecture. The winner of the sports festival kicked up his feet on his desk and stared at his hands, feeling all the power at his fingertips that would propel him into the number one hero spot.

But he felt it, someone watching him, and when he tilted his head back far enough, he caught a glimpse of Deku's eyes before he averted him.

He slammed his hands into the desk and shoved his chair in a 90-degree turn so he could look at him in the face.

"What's your problem, Deku," he demanded, but Midoriya said nothing, didn't even flinch when he was yelled at.

Bakugo ground his teeth and let his hands pop in frustration.

"I know you were staring at me, so fucking spit it out _Deku_."

"Katsuki," Kirishima spoke, and he jerked his head in his direction.

Kaminari looked like he was afraid he would jump up and kill him on the spot as he hunched behind his friend.

"What?" He asked, irritated, twisting his fingers into fists. "Look, I hated winning it like I did because he cheated me. Doesn't mean you guys should fucking outcast me just because you lost your bets on Half and Half. You should have bet on me in the first place."

Kirishima shook his head. "That's not it, okay? Now's not the time for this…"

"It sure as hell is the time for this," Bakugo yelled and stood up, knocking his chair over. "You all are just bitter because you didn't want me to win fucking first place!"

His friend opened his mouth to counter, but Midoriya raised from his seat, and everyone watched in awe like it was Monoma all over again as Bakugo's angry aura clashed with someone still in mourning. One was denser, had more sustenance, and would consume everything around it given the chance.

That's just how death worked. It worked in the hands of others, in mysterious ways, and affected people's minds as much as their bodies.

"He's dead Kacchan," he whispered quietly, slowly, developing each word for him, only for Bakugo to not get it.

"Huh? What the hell are you going on about Deku? Do I need to kick your ass too?"

Midoriya lifted his head, and he saw the tears; and his fists loosened a little bit, and Bakugo made the mistake of lowering his guard.

"You killed him, Kacchan!" His childhood rival howled, squeezing his eyes shut when he remembered the sad and pained face Todoroki made before Bakugo's final move. "You killed Shoto!"

The wind pounded against the windows, and all was silent.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Bakugo took a step back and stumbled on his chair but managed to keep his balance. Another ten seconds passed.

His eyes skipped around from each of his classmates to the empty seat Todoroki should have occupied.

Twenty-one. Twenty-two.

"What…?" He muttered softly.

Twenty-three. Twenty-four.

Midoriya slumped back in his chair, trying to wipe his eyes.

Twenty-five. Twenty-six.

Bakugo tried to think back, tried to remember, but all that came was Half and Half, limp against the ice, unmoving, and the bitter taste of victory unearned.

Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.

Death does things to people we can't comprehend. It shatters shells and chips facades and leaves behind a skeleton that, without support, cannot stand alone. And Bakugo was fixing to crumble.

Twenty-nine. Thirty.

He understood, thirty seconds later, what he had done. The muscles in his arms ached, and he remembered the rage, the anger, the power he channeled into his hands to finish the battle. It had been overwhelmingly, and he didn't hold back, not even when he saw the fire evaporate from the side of his face. He wasn't a winner in any shape or form. He had killed Shoto Todoroki, with the hands that were supposed to be for a hero.

He was nothing but a murderer now.

Everyone could see his pale face, the way his eyes darted back and forth trying to rectify what he had done, but there was no way to bring him back. There was no way to fix what he had taken away.

"No!" He screeched, and Kirishima flinched as he clenched both hands and screamed into the air.

It was anger at first, palpable and heavy, and Midoriya tried to hide beneath his arms. But it dissolved, split apart like glaciers in the heat, and soon after, he was sputtering into tears, pounding his fists into the desk like a child as he fell to his knees.

Shoto Todoroki, his rival, a man he would surpass on his way to being number one—his image was in flames now, and for what? Nothing. He had killed him for nothing but pride, and it seemed like such a stupid, petty thing now.

No one moved at first. How do you comfort the one who killed your classmate?

But Kirishima was struck hard in his heart by the tears and the cries. Silently, he walked over to his friend. No words were needed. He wrapped his arms around his torso, and Bakugo clung to his uniform, tearing at it as he wept unmuted into the empty silence of the classroom.

Izuku Midoriya slowly elevated his head. If he tried hard, he could imagine Shoto sitting in his seat, intent one day to become a hero far and abstract from his father's ideals. But he was gone, and they were all that remained of his dream to be a hero.

They would have to become one, each and every one of them, if they were going to do their fallen classmate justice. Villainy could not take them, not here, not now.

So selflessly, he slid out of his chair and joined the embrace Bakugo did not try to fight against. Soon enough, Aizawa watched in faint amazement as each student joined the hug. Even those, who moments before had been terrified of him, were melting into the group.

He was proud of them. All of them.

Thirty seconds changed their life; in the time it took to realize Todoroki didn't survive, in the time it took Bakugo to realized what he had done.

But they would be okay. Somehow, 1-A would pick up the broken pieces of their lives and move on; but Bakugo's heart was in torment, and he could feel no respite for the murder of his classmate.

The clock ticked on. No one let go.

And from a distant place, Shoto Todoroki smiled, truly unburdened by the pain he left behind.

* * *

 **I will consider a sequel to this piece, about a possible villain!Bakugo, if anyone is interested in that.**

 **I broke my 12 oneshot streak of having nice happy endings and not going the pure angst route. Mwhahaha.**

 **Hope you enjoyed reading.**

 **Soul Spirit**


End file.
